Murray Brothers – Part 1

Old headmaster J. H. Murray and three of his five sons of Murray Bros. Parramatta(Source: The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate, 18 July 1903, page 1 suppl. and 20 March 1897, page 7)

On 29 April 1876, his son Edward Nichol Murray (c1856-1931) opened a small hardware business in Church Street, Parramatta. In 1877, his eldest brother William Richard Murray (1849-1931) acquired Charles Tuke’s general store next door. In this store you could buy “Pianofortes and American Organs on easy terms and sewing machines on time payment, no interest.

The ‘no interest’ purchase was a new way of selling goods and at the time it appears to have been a successful for the brothers as they expanded the business and opened another hardware and crockery shop. This time on the opposite side of Church street.

At this time ‘Murray Brothers’ employed over 100 people working in the shop and the various factories as well as the woolen mills.

In 1884, the two brothers joined forces and formed what would become one of Parramatta’s best known businesses – ‘Murray Brothers’. A furniture section was added to the other branches of the business which included selling pianos & organs, the manufacture of clothes and even the production of their own jams. At one stage the furniture and jam factories were located in the old Ice Works in Smith Street beside the river.

Murray Brothers purchased the ‘Woollen Mill’ from the French family in 1887 for 2000 pounds and operated it under the name of ‘Parramatta Woollen Mill’. They installed the machinery acquired from the ‘Byrnes Australian Mill’ in Granville. Water from the nearby Hunts Creek was used for scouring the wool which was then dried in the sun, sorted, carded and woven into medal winning rugs and blankets. ‘Parramatta Woollen Mills’ won gold medals at Royal Agriculture show in Sydney in 1897, 1898 and 1899 for its rugs and blankets. In 1908 Parramatta Woollen Mills won a gold medal at Franco-British exhibition for uniforms. In 1911 the mill was sold to Alfred Edwin Daking Smith.

Hello everyone 🙂 I’m quite new to 3d printing and I have many questions on the matter, so I hope you won’t get mad at me for asking here at least a few of them. I think before I’ll get seriously into designing I should focus on the software itself, and that’s what I would like to ask you about. Mainly, should I start with the most simple/crudest program there is or would it be better to start on something more complicated? I’m worried that I’ll get some unwanted habits while working on simpler software. The second question is about the software as well: should I search for program that will allow me design and slice it in it, or should I use a separate software for each of them? Does it even make a difference? Weirdly, I couldn’t find the answer to that, as it seems like most blogs and sites want to focus on the very basics (like what is 3d printing and so on), and while the answers to those questions are fine, it seems like no one wants to go into the details (it looks like some of them even plagiarise each other! I swear I’ve read the same answers to the same questions on at least 3 different blogs) but I’m getting off-topic… The last question is about 3d pens. Would it be possible to somehow convert whatever I draw with a 3d pen to a 3d model in a CAD software? For example, if I’ll draw a dog with 3d pen, would it be possible to get its outline in a program? I’m not sure how that would even work, but the very idea sounds interesting to me. Anyway, I think I’ll stop here just in case no one will ever answer me and all of this writing will be for nothing. I’m sorry that I’m using your content to ask questions, but I hope you can relate and assist a beginner like me. Anyway, thank you for posting. I learned something from this and that’s always appreciated. Thank you, and I hope to hear back from you very soon 🙂

Hi,
Thanks for asking some questions! We haven’t done much on 3D printing, but have recently completed a 3D scanning project (check it out here: http://arc.parracity.nsw.gov.au/3d-scanning-parramatta/). While there is open source software for viewing, most of the scanners for heritage applications use proprietary software that links with the scanner itself. Even as such, a general rule is that starting on simpler software will assist you to get the beginner skills and results. In regards to viewing the scans, the models are 3D but not x-rays or CT scans so you cannot ‘slice’ without having a big gap in your model. The viewing software we use here is sketchfab, but you can run the standard file formats (such as .obj) on ms paint 3D.
The pen into CAD is a very interesting concept. There are examples of 3D painting and artwork in VR such as the Google tiltbrush which could be worth investigating if this is an area that interests you.